If tomorrow never came
by LovelyLivy
Summary: 'Everything plays like a black and white movie, after that. Casablanca was her favorite, anyway.' T/Z death-but-not.


_On the car ride home from the dance studio today, this plot bunny just kind of hopped into my life. It's undeniably disclaimed but I do wish to give a shout out to Amanda (mand-a-lot) and Sophia (sopha-king-awesome). Love you both!_

_Thoughts? Not my best work, but it's getting close to Halloween and I wanted to write something angsty but kinda supernatural. Lol. Oh, and I'm a review whore._

_-Liv_

* * *

><p>"Why the wide face?" she says with a smirk on her luring pink lips. Her ebony locks tickle his nose, as he lies there in his bed, indecent, careless. Lithe hands run smoothly down his chest, pausing at the heartbeat beneath flushed skin and light colored hair. Feeling of the constant, the prize to be won.<p>

"It's long. Long face, Ziva."

Outside his apartment, just in the distance, thunder rumbles like a beast awaiting a feeding.

She shifts atop him, brushing in just the right places, and he sighs because he can't help it. Not when she smells so good, and the proximity is so dangerous. He thinks that if they keep this up he may have a coronary by morning light. If there will even be any light.

It's been raining for two days straight. Not a quite little drizzle; meant to calm and caress.

Hard. Pounding. Fast. Rough. Loud. Undisturbed by even the grace of sunlight. Unrelenting.

Anthony DiNozzo thinks this might be a way to describe his relationship with the exotic woman currently straddling him and making his heart stop and his heads throb.

They really need to stop doing this.

Ziva David cannot say she posesses the same opinion, drawing out the strenous activity on a rare night off. 'This' feels good. It is reckless, and unmentionable, but it feels pleasant, a luxury which she shouldn't be able to afford.

Labels are meant for shoes and cheaply made but highly priced jeans. If they were to put a tab on this nitch, though, it would have to be something that is not overtly there.

Like, partners. Yeah, partners.

They are partners because of what takes to create fireworks. Her, twisting her hips and brushing him teasingly. Gripping her hips tightly, leaving a bruise or two she'll proudly wear in the light of next week (because the rain acts like it's pissed and never going to stop). Marking because she can, she'll groan and cry out and beg because no one can see and no one can stop it.

She'll sink her teeth into the flesh of his neck, taste copper, and lick it over with the same overwhelmed sigh.

It is so nice to have a partner.

* * *

><p>"Need that case report, DiNozzo."<p>

"On it, boss."

His eyes meet her's just across the small, humid space. He can't help but narrow his eyes slightly at the long sleeved shirt, the one meant to hide and deceive.

Tony hadn't meant to grip her wrists that hard, or leave such a bluish bruise just over her collarbone.

She won't stop pulling her sleeves down, which is what draws the attention, lights the fire in his gut. Can't she just act like everything is fine for three solid minutes?

The worry shows in her eyes, however imperceptible it may be to normal acquaintances. Yet another way they are more partners than anything else. More like one, than two.

Her darkdark eyes make his skin tighten and his mouth go dry, and they stir something within him that no one could ever deem 'normal'.

"DiNozzo," Gibbs growls under his breath. The senior field agent resumes his position of typing, and Ziva bites her lip. The silver haired man doesn't want to notice the signs of something. It's a rule. They know better.

Or so he hopes.

* * *

><p>"Tony, the DNA matches! Oh god, oh god, oh god!"<p>

His head shakes back and forth, even though he knows she can't see him through the phone. Abby isn't making any sense.

"Tony, it's a trap! Call McGee and Zi-"

"How much time, Abby?"

He swears he can hear his own heart pounding like freight train.

"Ten minutes. The bomb will be undetect-"

He hangs up before she can finish.

* * *

><p>Arriving at the suspect's apartment a mere eleven minutes and fifty five seconds later, all he sees is smoke and black and bricks and fire.<p>

And _fire_. Raging with a passion and fury, taking and not being merciful in the least.

Probie will not meet his eyes.

Gibbs holds him back, as he screams and curses and fights. The silver haired man looks tired, and old, like he has been doing this for far too long.

Rubble is up to his ankles, and Tony is falling, falling, falling, into some bottomless pit of nothing. Numb. Everything is numb. His throat hurts. The smoke teases his eyes, making them water.

He stops trying to fight Gibbs, and slumps, defeated, in the older man's grasp.

His bottom lip quivers.

This must be how it feels. How Gibbs felt when Jenny- How Palmer felt when Lee-

This is how it must be.

She's dead. She's dead. She's dead. He wants to make Gibbs stop saying it.

It cannot be true.

* * *

><p>Everything plays like a black and white movie, after that. Casablanca was her favorite, anyway.<p>

Another team processes the scene. Her body is autopsied by another ME, because Ducky can't do it. Her father calls. The bastard has the audacity to ask Gibbs if he can have the body, and Gibbs tells the big and mighty Daddy David exactly what he can do with that demand of his.

As it ends up, Ziva David had named an Anthony DiNozzo her next of kin.

He gets her bedsheets, and her clothes, and her high heeled boots that he loved to watch her strut around in when she only wore said and lingere.

He hasn't slept. He hasn't spoken, unless neccesary.

He needs help. Like, serious help. Like, Miss Kate's-Sister isn't going to work this time.

The funeral is tomorrow. After that, they will leave him with only ashes and a 'sorry'.

And 'sorry' has become the word that, much like Gibbs, Tony despises.

He gets it now.

He really gets it.

* * *

><p>Anthony DiNozzo's eyes flutter open and the light outside his window startles him.<p>

Immediately, he realizes he is not alone in his bed.

"Tony, if I snore like a drunken sailor with emphysema, you toss and turn like a worm that has been left in the heat for far too-"

She breaks off, startled by the look upon his face. The agony in his hazel eyes.

"What is wrong?"

Silence follows for fifteen seconds. She bristles.

"Tony, if you do not tell me-"

"Ziva, I love you," he mutters, cutting off her words and pulling her to his chest as she feels her breath catch in her throat.

"I...love you, as well, Tony. Very much so."

He kisses her forehead.

"What was that for?" she asks, a little intrigued, a little shocked. A little overwhelmed at the significance of the abrupt words.

"Nothing. Just dreamt you were dead there for a second."

"Oh." Her chocolate eyes widen.

"Yeah. Hey, you want some eggs for breakfast? I bet I've got some in my fridge. I'll start some coffee."

Ziva nods, studying the blue comforter intensely.

She bites her lip.

"It snowed."

Ziva looks up at his words. "Yes. While you were asleep, the rain turned into snow."

"You know, snow is just the solid form of rain? Maybe this has some sort of analogy to it."

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, Tony. The weather is very attentive to our relationship."

"Well I- Ziva, what is today?" His pulse jumps in his throat.

It had been snowing in his dream, when the bomb had gone off.

It had been snowing when Gibbs had told him she was dead.

He did not believe in coincidences.

"The seventeenth of November. Why?"

The phone rings shrilly, acute in the silence her question forebodes.

It's Gibbs. "Hey Boss."

"DiNozzo, call Ziva and tell her we've got a body at Anacostia Park-"

"Boss, Ziva has the stomach flu. Called me last night about three in the morning. Needed help. I'm getting her help."

Across the room, the Israeli looks outraged. For a moment, he fears Ziva might strangle him with her bare hands. It doesn't matter. At least right now she _has_ hands.

"DiNozzo..."

"Boss, I'm not coming into work today."

"...okay. Make sure she feels better, DiNozzo, you hear me? I still need a team, dammnit!"

"Thanks Boss. Bye."

There's silence on the other end of the line.

And then he really gets his ass chewed.

By a former Mossad, kick-ass ninja, who is currently in nothing but a pair of underwear and his old t-shirt. She's hot. And she's _pissed._

"Tony, what is wrong with you? Why in the world would you-"

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes, of course, but-"

"Something tells me we shouldn't go to work today."

Silence. A curious, cautious expression crosses her face.

"Okay."

"Okay," he mutters."Let's go get some coffee."


End file.
